At Home in Hespeler

The picture is of the editorial board of the Huffington Post, the leftwing website aggregator. It was posted in all unconsciousness by its Executive Editor as an example of “diversity”.

That is diverse, there’s even two blondes, although even they have parts and no bangs.

Going through Liz Heron’s twitter feed, I’m guessing they are all 100% in the tank for Hillary Clinton as well, diversity of thought being even less interesting to the women of Huffington Post than diversity of hairstyle.

For certified professional guitar repair in Cambridge Ontario: Brian Gardiner Guitar Repair

Media doesn't matter

The CBC runs a piece about changes to income tax laws, complete with puff-piece picture of Prime Minister Trudeau and his family.

For certified professional guitar repair in Cambridge Ontario: Brian Gardiner Guitar Repair

bad journalism, CBC, Media doesn't matter Add new tag, CBC, Justinmania

are the “journalists” whose salary you are forced to pay.

Something by the way of a juxtaposition:
From Lifesite News: 

As thousands of “outraged parents” gathered today in front of 103 of the 107 MPP constituency offices across Ontario

Heard on CBC Radio 2 on Wednesday (sorry, no link. I heard this myself and wrote it down verbatim):

Some parents protested outside the offices of Provincial politicians today. They’re upset about the new sex-ed curriculum.(emphasis mine)

For certified professional guitar repair in Cambridge Ontario: Brian Gardiner Guitar Repair

bad journalism, CBC, Media doesn't matter

McLeans magazine writer sides with Elizabeth May and Omar Khadr

for certified professional guitar repair in Cambridge Ontario: Brian Gardiner Guitar Repair

Media doesn't matter

Seriously, that’s the question the Sun put to it’s readers? as if they don’t know the answer already. Of course they bloody should. But at least it’s better than last time, when they offered a self-serving piece of cowardice on their front page in lieu of journalism. If they had stepped up then, along with the Star, the Globe and Mail, the National Post, The New York Times, and &tc. ad infinitum, instead of hiding behind such an obvious falsehood, instead of leaving the Western Standard and Charlie Hedbo to go it alone, then perhaps the cartoonist and editorial staff of Charlie Hedbo would be alive today.

And back when us mere hacks and amateurs where drawing Muhammad for Everybody Draw Muhammad Day, on the premise that they can’t kill us all, where was Andy Donato? Doodling his own hand like he gave us today? Freely practicing his speech about joining the fight, while leaving the rest of us to, you know, actually fight.

The sooner these media outlets are dead and gone, the better. They really are useless when it matters.

At least, however, The Sun has Ezra on the payroll.

Related: Somedays I think to myself, what does Kathy Shaidle really think? Today would not be one of those days.

Media doesn't matter Everybody Draw Mohammed Day

Toronto mayor Rob Ford, the politician most hated by The Toronto Star, wins a victory in court against a plaintiff who won a sweet  deal from the previous council, and then sued Ford when he questioned the process. The Toronto Star, Toronto’s largest newspaper, has no comment:

screen shot at 9:41PM

At 9:41, the Star story on this said:

A judge has dismissed the suit brought against Mayor Rob Ford by businessman George Foulidis.

More to come

Note the comment time (bottom left) and the current time (top right)

Note the first comment is at 5:19PM: more than 4 and-a-half hours after the decision, the paper that has opinions on Ford’s dinner choice will get back to you on that.

Media doesn't matter, Newspapers Rob Ford, Toronto Star

Three years ago I attended a rally in Guelph to hear Prime Minister Harper speak. Outside where a bunch of university students taking pictures of and generally harassing people entering the event. On the roof, two protesters climbed around, hoping to do who knows what.

Guelph March 19, 2008

They were dumber than they were stealth and the Prime Minister’s security removed them in hand cuffs.

Later, protester Izzy Hirji was quoted in the local media.

Question: if you were on the Prime Minister’s security detail, would you let Izzy Hirji into an election rally for the Prime Minister?

Or, would you allow the person who wrote on a Facebook Enviro Club wall:

stephen harpers plan is ridiculous, 40 years without results, and death to Kyoto!?!?!?! OMGWTF im ready to like go to Ottawa myself an take him down.

You got it, Izzy Hirji again.

The Black Rod has done a great job finding out who these “kids” are that Stephen Harper won’t let in, and it looks like there may have been good reason to keep them out.

But I’m guessing you won’t read that on Bourque:

Media doesn't matter Bourque, Guelph, Izzy Hirji, Prime MInister Harper

Lance Roberts and Gord Martineau sat in with CFRB’s Jim Richards today. Discussing the future of journalism, Richards asks, what about bloggers, and twitter and all that jazz?

Well, answers one of the experienced journalists, people will always turn to experienced journalists to get the truth. Bloggers offer opinions, you need *us* to give you the real story.

Just look, throws in Richards, at the Gordon Lightfoot false death story?

Yes, lets.

To start with, I heard about this story on… CFRB. On their newscast. By experienced, professional journalists, getting me the truth.

Secondly, while it’s true the story broke on twitter, it is patently false, as in not even remotely the real story, to suggest it was the product of a rogue blogger or random twitter user. The story broke on twitter after it was reported by…

CanWest News Service reporter David Aikn

Hey, isn’t he an experienced journalist?

And, and, and… isn’t it CanwestGlobal Lance Roberts?

Thank God! for trusted respected media, or who knows what kind of limbo Gordon Lightfoot would be in right now.

Media doesn't matter CanwestGlobal, CFRB, David Akin, Gord Martineau, Gordon Lightfoot, Jim Richards, Lance Roberts

Listening to the adult contemporary station on the drive into work today (not my choice of station, I was a passenger). Here was the top stories, in order:

Tiger woods says he’s sorry.

Twenty-five men dead in a mining accident.

Sigh.

Media doesn't matter

means having the freedom to do your job without interference, not without effort:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper urged journalists to “shine light into dark corners” of government affairs during a speech late Saturday, but wouldn’t take questions from reporters covering the event…

Freedom for Canadians goes hand-in-hand with journalistic freedom, he told the dinner guests gathered at Seneca College in Markham, home to thriving Asian communities.

Members of the ethnic press and their readers understand what it’s like in countries where “truth is only what the state says it is” and journalists are co-opted as government mouthpieces or threatened with their lives, Mr. Harper said.

So the story is, he doesn’t really believe in freedom of the press because he didn’t take questions.

But lets face it, why should anybody make their job easy? Even when possibly the biggest story in years is handed to them on a silver platter, they don’t report it.

If your not up to speed on the global warming scientists fudging the science, Small Dead Animals has been as good as anybody on this story, and the only credible media outlet in Canada covering it.

Media doesn't matter canadian media, Global Warming, Small Dead Animals, Stephen Harper

Maybe newspapers like the Star wouldn’t be offering buyouts to trim payroll, contracting out editing and pagination, if they were unbiased. But at the Star, bias is considered a plus:

Union leader Maureen Dawson criticized the Star’s decision…

“Journalism is a collaborative effort, the product of a team of reporters, photographers and editors working in concert to produce the kind of activist agenda that has served Star readers and our community so well for so long,”

Next time you call them a biased media, and some Star loving, latte sipping birkenstocker protests, ask him what “activist agenda” means.

Media doesn't matter Star, Toronto

I know what it’s like to worry for your job, so I have sympathy for the people at Sun media today:

It didn’t take long for Pierre-Karl Péladeau to assert himself at Sun Media.

… the Quebecor president announced 600 people will be laid off…

The company said in a statement that the cuts represent 10 per cent of Sun Media’s workforce

According to Toronto Sun Family the layoffs in Toronto include:

Ernest Doroszuk, Dave Abel, Dave Ellis, Calvin Reynolds, Debbie Holloway, Ken Winlaw, Jane Stevenson, Amy Chung, Jenny Yuen, Brynn Weese, Don Peat and Jason Buckland.

I have complained bitterly about The Sun of late, swearing off buying it at inflated out-of-town prices and have even called it “a deteriorating product.” It is, and names that stand out as to why aren’t on the list above.

Memo to Pierre-Karl Péladeau: the reason your “current economic environment is deteriorating,” has nothing to do with Jane Stevenson or Debbie Holloway. You need to look further up the chain of command to names like Paul Berton and Rob Granatstein if you want to have a chance to staunch the bleeding.

********
Update: Pierre-Karl Peladeau, along with Erik Peladeau, Jean Neveu and Jean La Couture have resigned from the Quebecor board.

Further Update: I finally got this whole Quebecor thing figured out. There are two branches to Quebecor, Quebecor World Inc. and Quebecor Inc. Quebecor used to be one company, but they have split into two. Quebecor World is the printing side of the former company, Quebecor the newspaper side. Pierre-Karl Peladeau resigned from the board of the printing company, but remains on the board, and in charge, of the newspaper side of things. Erik Peladeau, Jean Neveu and Jean La Couture also resigned from Quebecor World Inc., the printing arm of the company.

The resignations have, as far as I can tell, no effect on the running of the Quebeecor Inc. newspaper holdings, including the Sun newspapers.

*******
…ier: More names added to the list of employees gone from the Toronto Sun lineup, including
money editor Linda Leatherdale, entertainment desk editor Derek Tse and new music critic Jason MacNeil. Leatherdale in particular is a big name. Full list of Toronto Sun employees let go is here.

******
Nod to readers of the Toronto Sun Family Blog, which is doing a remarkable job of covering this story. For further updates on the bloodletting at the Sun, they are, far and away, the best source for news.

Media doesn't matter

So I head to my Quickie Mart this AM for my usual news purchase, which amounts to The National Post and the Toronto Sun: price $2.03. Today the familiar voice behind the counter says “$2.53 please.”

“Huh?” says I.

“The sun is now $1.50.”

A dollar-fifty to buy the Toronto Sun. Lately I have been reading it thinking, what am I wasting my time with this crap for. The quality of the Sun has never been astounding, but they always had writers. Lately, they seem to be hiring from the can’t quite cut it at the Star club.

So it is, that at my house, the asteroid has hit my Toronto Sun habit as of today. I can’t imagine too many people paying a fifty percent price increase for a deteriorating product (that’s available for free anyway) in an increasingly difficult marketplace. But the geniuses who brought you Paul Berton and Rob Granatstein think differently, and who am I to argue with success like that?

Media doesn't matter